Multilingual tour guide system

[Original Beef]

I've been asked by a customer to source a multilingual tour guide system. They are a tourist attraction and require a transmitting device that transmits on 6 channels simultaneously pre recorded media in different languages. I am familiar with Sennheiser tourguide systems but the ones I've provided feature a tourguide or translator using a hand held microphone and headphone recievers. I'm sorry if I sound vague but I'm struggling to describe exactly what they need. If this makes any sense then I would be grateful if you can even just tell me what it's called and I'll do the rest. Thanks.

[Stuart91]

Would any of the kits used for silent discos work? I've come across some that use two or three channels, not so sure about six.

 

They're not the most "pro" pieces of kit in the world but they're relatively robust and cheap to replace.

[Dave m]

I am pretty sure that when I visited stone henge the unit was hired/borrowed as a language dependant handset

When I was in Windsor castle I am pretty sure that this was the system.

http://www.blackboxa...r-guide-product

[Original Beef]

Thanks guys. David your suggestion certainly seems to tick all boxes so I will go down this route I think.

[Jivemaster]

Bletchley Park museum has a system. It's carried round and the user triggers the unit at each point. It seems at first sight to be a solid state player with phones, so it seems that you could programme some with commentary in each of several languages. IIRC it does rely on the user pushing buttons for each location. Obviously there are no transmitters (to licence).

[henny]

take a look at

 

http://www.dataton.com/pickup/success-story/pickup-audio-guide

[matt_h]

What you are looking for is what's known in the Heritage industry as an "Audio Described Tour," more commonly known as an "Audio Guide" or "Audio Tour" for short. Although there are now a bewildering array of multimedia alternatives based on iOS and Android devices to choose from.

 

A good place to start would be the exhibitor list from the Museums and Heritage Show .It's worth mentioning that almost all of the companies offering flashy multimedia experiences do have much simpler audio only options.

 

At Waddesdon we use ATS Heritages multimedia system, which is based on iPod touches in a robust plastic case. Chatsworth and Bletchley use the same system as us and it is possible to have as many languages as you would like (and are prepared to pay for) on the same unit.

 

Do bear in mind that each language offered will need to be recorded separately. Depending on the amount of content you have this can be a very costly exercise. To give you an idea we have nearly 3.5 hours of content (in English) and for each translation will cost us between £6k and £7k.

 

I hope this helps, do feel free to ask any questions here or by pm if you wish.

[mac.calder]

Another vote here for dataton Pickup. You set the genre inside the id3 tag on the MP3 files to define the language. Then you have a series of transponders for each language that you have and inside the comment tag on the ID3 for that track you tell it to "select genre" - Pickup will then only play tracks with the defined genre. Each transponder has a 4 digit code which corresponds to a folder on the device - and it searches within the folder for the correct genre. If it cannot find a file it looks for that genre in folder 9999 (which can be a generic "We apologise but a translation for this exhibit does not exist" message. I have only used it one-dimensionally (2 or 3 languages, point at a transponder and click) which seems to be what you are looking to do, but it could also be used to do a "choose your own adventure" style art installation for example.

[Jivemaster]

On busy days Bletchley Park Museum has turnround issues with the hardware, They are recharged between uses which can be three times daily, You need to cope with peak period demand without too much investment.

[Original Beef]

Thanks for the extra info guys. I shall do some research and report back to my customer.